Digestive Diseases

Digestive Diseases

Digestive diseases, also known as gastrointestinal diseases, are disorders that affect your esophagus, stomach and small and large intestines.
The symptoms of digestive diseases vary widely depending on which part of your digestive system is affected. Generally symptoms can be blood in your stool, a change in bowel habits, pain, weight loss or heartburn that is not relieved by antacids. See you doctor if you have any of these signs of digestive disease.

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Your doctor might start your upper endoscopy procedure by spraying your throat with a local anesthetic or by giving you a sedative to help you relax. You'll then lie on your side, and your doctor will pass the endoscope through your mouth and into the esophagus, stomach and duodenum. The endoscope doesn't interfere with your breathing. Most patients consider the test only slightly uncomfortable, and many patients fall asleep during the procedure.

Some patients may think they have irritable bowel syndrome but could have inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis or other conditions. Learn more from Ernest Digiovanni, DO, from Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point in this video.

You can take most medications as usual until the day of the endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) examination. Tell your doctor about all medications that you're taking and about any allergies you have. Anticoagulant medications (blood thinners such as warfarin or heparin) and clopidogrel may need to be adjusted before the procedure. Insulin also needs to be adjusted on the day of EUS.

In general, you can safely take aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications (ibuprofen, naproxen, etc.) before an EUS examination. Check with your doctor in advance regarding these recommendations. Check with your doctor about which medications you should take the morning of the EUS examination, and take only essential medications with a small sip of water. If you have an allergy to latex, you should inform your doctor prior to your test. Patients with latex allergies often require special equipment and may not be able to have a complete EUS examination.

Gastroparesis is a form of nerve damage that affects the stomach. Digestion of food may be incomplete or delayed, resulting in nausea, vomiting, or bloating, making blood glucose levels difficult to manage.

There are two functional rectal pain syndromes. The first and most common one is called proctalgia fugax. This is a sudden and often severe pain in the anus or lower rectum that lasts for several seconds to several minutes and then completely disappears. It is common for the symptom to awaken people from sleep, and it can occur after sexual activity. The attacks are usually infrequent.

The second is levator ani syndrome, which is chronic or recurrent rectal pain or aching that occurs episodically for 20 minutes or longer. The pain is often described as a dull ache or pressure sensation that is vague and felt high in the rectal area. It commonly seems worse with sitting than with standing or lying down. When the doctor examines the anus and rectum, the tenderness is most commonly noted more on the left than the right side.

Typically, a patient will undergo an upper endoscopy, a gallbladder evaluation and, sometimes, a CAT scan of the abdomen before they get a gastric-emptying study. During the gastric-emptying study, the patient eats a meal (oatmeal or scrambled eggs) that has been labeled with a radioactive tracer. They’ll sit or stand under a detection camera that will measure how quickly the meal empties from the stomach. If it’s abnormal, they can be diagnosed with gastroparesis.